Greetings!!
I am Shilpa and I hail from the beautiful southern Indian state of Tamilnadu. I was brought up and educated in the city of Chennai (formerly known as Madras). I am 25 yrs old and an engineering graduate, currently working as a content developer and instructional designer at Invensys India Private Limited. I am very passionate about the interests I develop and believe in following my heart and dreams.
As a child I travelled to many beautiful places with my family and every city and country would leave me craving more. Travelling turned into a passion and since I wanted to capture these wonderful memories and moments, photography has become my ancillary passion. Countryside experiences take my breath away, long drives give me a sense of peace and calm and I revel in bucolic beauty. Nature at its best humbles me. There were times during my travel when I wished I could just take the scenery back home with me. My love affair with photography started during a trip to the Bandipur National Park when I for the first time photographed a majestic wildcat in all of its elements and in its natural habitat using an easy to carry around digital camera. I soon realized the need for a better gadget and wisely invested my first pay check in a DSLR. Since then I have spent my spare time in gaining knowledge on the art of photography and experimenting with my camera. Photography is not just an art; a photograph allows me to imagine as if I were seeing the place through the eyes of the photographer. It’s a combination of imagination, science and creativity.
Blessed with a creative mind and having majored in science, I started working on understanding how multiple factors like light, distance, color, etc., in the right fraction can make or break a good click. I eagerly look forward to my weekends because that’s when I step out with my camera, driving far and wide, capturing people, places, structures and everything else that catches my eye. I create fresh, vibrant images that capture the essence of my subjects, from portraits and landscapes to still life and abstract photography. I love to photograph old buildings and barns. I love to spend time out in the countryside with my camera. Finding the unexpected is a great day. I do enjoy taking photos of families as well as young adults, babies & animals.
I am also learning how to use technology to turn my pictures into art, so it’s essential to know how to use the various editing tools correctly so that end of the day the photo does justice to what my naked eyes saw and meant to capture in the picture. On the other hand, there are times when I want to create an illusion, something that was not what I saw but would have liked to see and these tools help me transform my thoughts into a picture. Either way, I believe it’s an important part of the process and should be used effectively.
For a person who at best has an average memory, I believe photography leaves indelible impressions of places I visit, people I meet and it also helps reminisce the wonderful experiences much after events have unfolded. Photography, I feel, is a tool that brings like-minded people together both on prints and within a community. The biggest reason, I believe, is just the ability of capturing a moment as it happens with just a single click of a button. Sure, skilled and experience photographers may capture the scene in a more artistic manner compared to the casual snapper, but the key point is, you captured what you want to remember right then and there. Our brain and its stored memory are amazing; you can piece together fragments of an event and relive the entire day with ease. If it’s a group event, all of you can recall every single detail collectively with just one photograph. The emotions that a photograph can stoke up within you can be overwhelming at times regardless of technical execution. The ability of photography to connect to our past, associate us in an event, and preserve memories without words or interpretation makes it an influential hobby for all of us.
To me, ‘A picture speaks a tad more than a thousand words’! Parallelly, I enjoy storytelling and I let my photos do the storytelling these days. With time, my interests within photography have varied. Off late, the fact that cameras can capture the emotions and expressions so beautifully and candidly deeply fascinates and excites me. I especially like taking “mugshots”: capturing people’s emotions on the move candidly! I have very recently started taking candid photos at weddings as well as doing pet portraits and this just might turn into a nice stream of revenue to support my passions. What really keeps me going is the pure bliss that you see on one’s face when they see your work and that gives me a sense of appreciation and satisfaction.
My latest interest lies in photography that inspires awareness and I am sure with time it will vary but I am going to continue travelling and taking pictures that will help me and others relive as well as cherish wonderful moments from the past.
For me, photography has come to stay forever, and I hone my shooting skills in earnest. No other field offers a greater variety to explore than photography, and it is for this reason, I stay motivated to look for newer avenues of exploring through the lens of my camera.
In conclusion, I would like to end by quoting Dorothea Lange - "Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still".
